Missing God
by Locastil
Summary: Derek's not enjoying his 23rd birthday party much to begin with, but things take a turn for the worse when a giant cat crashes through the wall of this parents' home and starts eating his guests. Fortunately, Derek and a few close friends are saved by a scrawny man with mysterious powers and an annoying fondness for hearing his own voice. And he expects Derek to save the world.
1. Welcome to the Party

AN: This is a collaboration between brethilaki and myself. Though I'm pretty sure she does most of the work...I just sort of throw my crazy ideas at her.

We do not own Teen Wolf or anyone in it. They are the original characters of MTV and whoever came up with the idea (Jeff Davis? Fuck I don't know).

Reviews/Thoughts/Concerns are greatly appreciated :)

Beginning:

Music reverberated through every arched opening of the Mediterranean house his family had acquired off-market a few years back. It was a sprawling palace of tan terracotta, red clay shingled and rising like a mesa out of the plain of an immaculately manicured lawn. His parents had paid around $2 million for the property, and it had always been one of their favorites.

But what would they say if they could see the bodies in the sitting room? Grinding and humping to the beat of whatever was the newest mainstream dance song—Derek didn't know. He never kept up with that shit.

It was a cavernous circular chamber, admittedly better suited to crowded parties than it was to family living. It echoed when empty, at least two stories tall and capped with a skylit turret—low pitched to match the rest of the roof and inky black in the moonless early morning. Where the second floor might have been was a half-moon balcony railed in iron filigree, the perfect place for Derek to keep an eye on his plastered guests. Someone had to, after all, and it certainly wasn't going to be Derek's equally plastered friends.

Tapping his fingers idly to the bass riff of another numbingly repetitive song, Derek looked at his watch and decided his friends, and more importantly his house, would survive without his supervision for ten minutes and stalked down to the first floor to grab one lone beer. Derek enjoyed drinking, but not getting drunk. Partying had never really been his...thing.

"Derek!" came the cry of someone intent on reminding him why. Derek sighed and tried to figure out if he could pretend he hadn't heard and evaporate into the crowd, but a broad hand had already clasped his shoulder a little too roughly. Great, it was Jackson. Jackson was a douche.

"Hey, happy birthday, asshole!" Jackson said a little too loudly and smiling a little too widely, eliciting an eye roll from his girlfriend Lydia, who had appeared behind him, looking more than a little fed up. "Awesome house!"

Derek smiled politely. He knew Jackson was only nice to him because Derek had more money that he did. Lydia had no such affectation.

"Yeah, it _would_ be, if you would stop talking to Derek so we could find a bedroom," she sighed, giving Derek an apologetic look as she grabbed Jackson by the collar and strutted away with him in tow behind her. "Happy birthday," she sang over her shoulder and Derek nodded appreciatively and ducked into the kitchen before he could be stopped again.

No, this... this had always been Laura's sphere. Alcohol had flowed like water at her infamous parties, and the dancing had carried on until all the guests were passed out on the lawn—every Friday night like the Great fucking Gatsby, but more exclusive and without the redeeming social commentary.

The house had been almost eerily quiet since her death, empty and echoing. Until tonight's party, held only at Erica's insistence. Derek should have never told the girl his damn birthday.

"Derekkkkk," came a slurred voice from behind him, and speak of the devil. Erica sauntered up to him with a playful pout, blond waves gone slightly limp with sweat. "Comeeee onnnnn," she drawled. "Let's go dance! It's yer 23rd birthday for god's sakes! Let looooossseeeee." She latched onto his arm and dragged him toward the sitting room. It teemed with moving bodies, and the longer Derek stared at it, them more they seemed to lose their discrete shapes, melding in the dark into some long-torsoed and demonic thing, hundred headed and thousand limbed. Derek paused at the edge of the crowd, entranced by his own imagination, until a tug from Erica sent him stumbling into the mob and out of his thoughts.

"Get drunk! Go daaaanncceee! Have some fun you sour puss!" she instructed before going to find her lover Boyd, who gave Derek a pitying look as he was dragged into the crowd.

Derek sighed, but joined them nonetheless. Erica could be pretty scary when she didn't get her way. He waded into the group a bit, bobbing his head and shifting his body slightly to the beat of the music. As long as he at least pretended to try, Erica would get off his case. He looked through the crowd, eyes catching the top of a head of short, sandy curls. That would be Isaac, dancing with what looked to be his best friend Scott Mccall and Scott's girlfriend Allison Argent.

Scott and Allison had been dating since literally kindergarten, and were still inseparable. As fucked up as that may be, you could almost have called it sweet if it hadn't been for Isaac, who had met Scott in the eighth grade and wedged his way so deeply into their relationship that they seemed to have become a single entity, a three-headed, two-gendered hydra some smartass had named Scallisaac, the Scylla of Beacon Hills. It was uncannily fitting.

"Hey Derek! Great party!" a voice said from behind him.

Derek turned to see Danny Mahealani, everyone's favorite homosexual Hawaiian. No. Really. That is what he had always been called. By their school, town, everyone. Derek just called him Danny.

Derek flashed his million-dollar smile. "Glad to hear it. Can I get you another drink?" he asked, playing good host.

Danny shook his head, "Nah. I need to dance off the few I've already had." Danny waved at Derek before slipping away to find someone, most likely Jackson.

Jackson and Danny had been best friends since elementary school, which Derek had never understood. Jackson was a douche. Seriously.

Derek shook his head, deciding he had "worked the dance floor" long enough and was just about to slip away, when there was a loud pop and the whole house went pitch black. There was a scream and a series of groans. "Come on man!" someone yelled. Derek cursed. They must have blown a breaker. Working his way blindly through the crowd, Derek fished his cell phone out of his pocket to hold it in front of him like a flashlight.

"Okay! Okay! Everyone calm down! I'm going to go flip the breaker," Derek said loudly though with little hope of being heard over the chaos.

He put his cell phone on the brightest setting and made his way down one of the house's long, winding hallways. He kept a hand on the wall, weary of discarded beer cans as he tread, until he felt the ridges of smooth stucco framing basement door. Because of course the breaker box had to be in the basement.

Trailing his hand along the edge of the door, Derek felt a chill run up through his arm and down his spine, as if his hand had just read in the embossed plaster a Braille warning his mind could hardly comprehend. Unbidden, his mind darted back to the strange hallucination he had had at the threshold of his sitting room, and he shivered again.

This was the beginning of a horror movie. Starring Derek Hale and the demonic caterpillar waiting at the bottom of the stairs. He was going to die. Well. He'd like to say he had lived a good life, but it was actually pretty boring. Might as well get this over with.

Derek turned the doorknob, letting the door fall open of its own weight. It creaked loudly as it swung slowly into the thick darkness of the stairwell leading down to the basement. In the light, this corridor had never seemed long, but as Derek gazed down through the door now, he could not see the bottom, and even when he held his cell phone at arms length in front of him, it only illuminated the first few steps.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Derek started down, keeping one hand tight on the railing and the other clutching his cell phone. He could hear the house settling around him and rodents squeaking and scurrying away from his footfalls as he searched his surroundings with the faint bluish light. Bicycles, kayaks, the broken engine of a boat, all cast ugly shadows on the boxes behind them. Surfboards, trophies, that exercise machine his dad swore he was going to use... everything, it seemed, but a breaker box. The old wooden stairs creaked with every step, startlingly loud in the silence of the—

_CRASH_

Derek spun around as a mountain of boxes crumbled behind him, sending small shining orbs of green and red shattering against the concrete or rolling past his feet. Well. There went all of their Christmas decorations.

But what the hell had knocked them over?

Derek knew he shouldn't be brave. That guy always died. But he had to find the damn breaker box. He closed his eyes and took another breath before slowly making his way over to the fallen boxes, phone held high like a weapon.

The light from the phone let him see about three feet in any direction he looked, and as he picked his way forward he swept this three foot radius of vision for breaker boxes with one eye, keeping the other eye open for perverted Leprechauns and ax murderers and checking behind him every few steps.

Finally a wall appeared before him, so suddenly he almost broke his nose on it. He threw up his hands just in time, turning his head to the left to avoid collision, and there it was—the breaker box! Derek pried open the metal door, looking for whatever switch had knocked the power out—but the main switch was the only one that had been flipped. Weird. That switch only popped if there was a citywide outage or…someone flipped it. Derek reset it, trying not to think about that, muffled whoops upstairs telling him that his mission was a success.

As Derek turned around, about to head up the stairs, his ears pricked suddenly and his hair stood up against his suddenly burning skin. Had he heard... footsteps? No, it was the rats scurrying and the house settling, and—but then what? What was that shadow, like a human figure, emerging from behind a stack boxes to his right...?

And suddenly Derek was hauling ass up the basement stairs, heart beating so loud in his ears he barely heard the door as it slammed shut behind him. He leant back against the wall to catch his breath and pressed his ear to the door. No scratching, no footsteps, no sounds of pursuit. Nothing breaking down the door.

Huh.

It must have been the dark playing with his mind. He had seen his own shadow, cast in the light of his phone, and imagined it was something else. That was the only explanation.

Derek shook his head and straightened up before heading back to the living room. The music had not started again, but everyone was drinking, chatting, and laughing. When they saw them they cheered.

"Good job, hero," Erica said, nudging him with her elbow. The laughter picked up, someone poured Derek another drink, which he accepted grudgingly and sipped sparingly, and the party started to pick up where it had left off.

"Turn the music back on!" someone yelled. There was a static sound followed by the dark syncopation of dubstep intro—not the usual top forty dance-pop, but no one seemed sober enough to care. The rhythmic tension built, growing in the air, settling over the crowd as the guests began undulating against it, trying to find a beat. The tension threaded through them, pulling them taught until every body was frozen with baited breath waiting for the drop of the bass. The music teased, teetering on the edge, pulling thin like a rubber band until it reached the point it either had to snap...

...or break.

Derek staggered forward, grabbing a wall with one hand and a stumbling Erica with the other as a colossal crash shook the house to its foundations. The music stuttered and stopped and a dusting of plaster knocked free from the walls settled over the stunned silence.

"Holy shit! What was that?" Scott cried in an alarmed trill, but Derek could only frown.

There was another noise, like an explosion, so loud this time that when the house shook the windows shattered, showering the party guests with shards of glass like a deadly rain. Derek put his back to the explosion, blocking Erica with his body from the aftershocks and falling glass. Others were taking refuge under furniture or covering their heads with their arms. Derek surveyed the scene in disbelief before turning back to Erica.

"You okay?" he mouthed.

Erica nodded.

A voice rose above the chaos: it was Scott.

"Is everyone alright?" he called, standing up in the rubble and looking around the room. Eyes peered back at him from under tables and behind the recliner and couch, and screams and sobs died down into a shocked calm. Derek let go of Erica, handing her to Boyd before carefully walking over to peer out into this backyard through one of the glassless window frames.

"I don't see anything…" he announced, frowning more deeply.

"Maybe it's the North Koreans," Jackson suggested.

"Jackson. Never reproduce," Isaac snarked.

Lydia huffed and rolled her eyes. "Maybe we should just _check the news_," she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Good idea," Allison agreed, grabbing the remote to Derek's 55" HDTV and turning it to... static. She flipped through the channels: static, static, static... a black screen... more static... a black box appeared in the middle of the screen informing them that there was "no signal."

"I thought you had like... fiber-optic cable…" Isaac said, eyes flicking between Derek and his TV.

"I do," Derek frowned.

"So…what does that mean?" Isaac asked.

"It means…that there's no signal," Derek answered dryly.

"It means that there is no news, no TV, and no help!" Jackson elaborated, beginning to hyperventilate. "Everyone we know could be dead. Our parents. Our other friends. Our teachers. The government. Everyone!"

Lydia placed a hand on Jackson's shoulder, quieting him.

"Calm down, okay?" Derek said in frustration. "Everyone just calm down. There has to be a reasonable explanation—"

A second explosion, smaller but nearer than the first, sent wood, plaster, and insulation flying from the wall behind Derek, knocking him to the ground. Gathering his wits Derek propped himself up on his shoulders and stared up at what _had_ to be another, perhaps concussion-induced, hallucination: a six-foot-tall, gangling, razor-furred creature, gray and feline, saliva dripping from its foul-breathed snarl as it studied the group of humans like a house cat waiting to pounce on a fly.

The tight and terrified silence that followed was broken suddenly by a shrill scream, which the monstrous cat answered with a roar and a leap, claws flashing white—then red as they dug into the flesh of the horror-stricken girl who had cried out, blood spattering the white tile floor and the faces of her nearest companions. Some of them scattered backwards, some watched frozen in terror as her skull was crushed between the cat's jaws with a sickening crack, her body ripped in half by a jerk of the cat's head and her upper half chewed and crunched and finally swallowed.

Derek found himself unable to move, staring as the cat began lapping at the blood still spilling from the lower half of her corpse.

"Derek! Derek! Jesus Christ, come on Derek!" came an urgent voice, followed by a slap in the face.

Boyd grabbed Derek by the front of his shirt and hauled him up, dragging him outside of the house, where the rest of his friends had already fled.

"There are still people…" Derek said, looking back at the house, now filled with the sound of screams and cracking bones.

"We can't help them. We've got to go," Boyd said, dragging Derek further. The others fell quickly in line behind them, and Boyd did not stop until they were at the top of the hill overlooking the house, three blocks away. He let go of Derek, who landed on his ass with a thump and watched in shock as his parents' house was engulfed in flame.

In fact, the whole neighborhood was on fire. Derek could see his neighbors silhouetted against the flames, fleeing their houses only to be overtaken by the grotesque shapes of what he could only assume were similar catlike creatures.

"Derek! Come on! Snap out of it! We need you!" a female voice broke through his trance.

Derek shook his head, looking up at Erica's worried face.

"Derek," Erica whimpered, face a mirror of the terror that clenched cold around Derek's gut.

Derek sighed, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. His friends needed him. They needed to get somewhere safe and sheltered where they could figure out what the hell was going on. He needed to take charge.

Finally opening his eyes, Derek stood up, hugging Erica close. Holding her as she cried, he looked around at the other survivors. Scott, Isaac, and Allison sat huddled together, watching the destruction. Jackson and Lydia stood a few feet away, staring at him with fear and confusion. Boyd and Danny stood behind him, waiting on Derek's instructions. And that was all that had escaped.

"We've got to keep moving," Derek said, letting go of Erica.

"But _where_, Derek?" Jackson snarled, drowning his panic in anger and lashing out in a desperate attempt to find some blame, some reason, in random misfortune. "There's nowhere! Look around!"

"So what? You want to just give up then? Fine, maybe you'll distract the thing long enough for those of use who still want to _live_ to get away!" Scott shot back, looking up from Allison's shoulder.

"Scott," Derek snapped, drawing on the authority his money had always entitled him to. "Not now." He set his face in a stern glare then, and addressed the group. "I'm moving on. Follow me or not, that's your choice—but if you want to survive, I wouldn't stay here."

Isaac stood up, looking at Derek and pointedly away from the burning neighborhood that seemed to hold everyone's gaze like a magnet. "I'm with you," he said. Then, "Come on, guys. Scott. Allison. Derek's right, we can feel sorry for ourselves later."

"Fine," Jackson spat. "But what's your _plan_, tough guy?"

Derek ignored him and started down the other side of the hill with Isaac and Erica in tow.

"Um guys?" Allison said, standing up to follow.

"What?" Derek asked curtly without even looking back.

"I'm all for getting out of here..." Allison backed up slowly as she spoke then turned on her heel to take off sprinting. "..._but I suggest we run!_"

As she called to her friends over her shoulder Allison's words were slowly overtaken and drowned out by the bone-chilling crescendo of a feline growl, announcing the approach of another monster. Derek whipped his head around to see it mounting the hill, bared fangs catching the red glint of swirling inferno that had been his home, bared fangs almost close enough that he could see or imagine strips of flesh stuck between its teeth.

He grabbed Erica and ran, eyes scanning the path ahead and fixing on a building to their left: Handy Hank's Auto Repair, dark and dirty and itself in need of repair, but tactically superior to the naked vulnerability of open air.

"To that shop!" Derek yelled, steering his younger friends leftward.

Of course, this would be the moment that Erica tripped over her own pivoting feet, twisting her ankle and nearly pulling Danny and Boyd down on top of her in a desperate bid to keep on her balance.

"Shit _shit SHIT_!" she cried, holding her ankle with one hand and trying to push herself up with the other.

Danny and Boyd stopped to lift her between them, dragging her towards the shop. She hobbled forward, wincing in pain each time her weight landed on her bruised joint, but not daring to slow to a gentler pace.

They were already too slow: Derek summoned the courage to glance behind and saw the monster-cat within seconds of overtaking them all. There was no way they would make it to shelter... unless something stopped it. Without pausing to think, without taking his eyes off their imminent death, Derek turned his body in line with his head so that he was facing the creature full on, and dug his heels into the ground in resolution.

"Derek?" Scott hesitated on the threshold of turning back. "Derek, come on what the—!"

"Why are you stopping?!" Derek shouted, looking frantically back at him. "_Get into the shop_!"

Scott's eyes widened in realization and he wavered just a second longer—"Derek, no...!"—until Allison grabbed his shoulder and physically dragged him toward the building.

"Scott get them out of here!" Derek ordered with all the authority he could summon. Reassuring himself as much as Scott, he added, "I'll be okay!"

As Scott nodded and broke out of Allison's grip to herd his surviving friends to safety, Derek felt a current of hot, acrid air raising the hair on the back of his neck. Taking a deep breath and setting his shoulders, Derek released the paralysis of his fear in deep sigh and turned slowly to face the beast. Maybe he would die, but dammit, at least he would die protecting his friends.

Derek tried not to shake as the cat raised its claws to strike, but could not help the warmth of relief that washed over him when it paused mid-air, looking at something behind him. It was short lived: with a sudden feeling like the bottom of his gut caving in, Derek realized the monster was looking at his friends, and the screams that followed told him that it was not alone. Derek clenched his eyes shut and felt hot tears gather behind his lids. It was all in vain after all. He would die, and his friends would still be eaten.

The first monster lost interest in the commotion behind him and pounced. Derek flinched and prayed for his death to be swift—if for no other reason, then to spare him the pain of hearing his friends die. He forced his eyes open to glare into the glowing eyes of the predator bearing down on him and found the courage to spit, "Do your worst you son of a—"

_BANG_

Derek's challenge was interrupted by a flash like supernova that left his vision spotty and his eyes in pain despite his haste to cover them. As unpleasant as this was, it was positively euphoric compared to the prospect of being ripped limb from limb and devoured by a giant cat—which seemed to have it worse than Derek did. In fact the creature barely had time to howl pitifully before literally turning to ash right in front of Derek's recovering eyes. Its companion seemed to have fared no better.

Looking up and around for the source of this miracle, Derek was barely able to make out, through a snow of cinder, a single human shape. It was slender but unmistakably male, not tall but not short, with skin so fair his short brown hair looked almost black against it, and pale pink lips that twisted in a smile as he stared down at Derek. All these details registered one by one as white dulled to black and its afterimage cleared from Derek's vision. Blinking slowly, Derek realized that the man—barely more than a boy—was reaching a hand down to help him to his feet. Derek took it, and the man's smile widened.

"Looks like you guys could use some help."


	2. Stiles and the Messenger

Derek stared at the hand in front of his face like as if unsure what it was and what it was doing there. Finally he looked up at its owner and asked, dumbly, "Who the hell are you?"

The stranger scoffed, whether playful or offended or a little of both, Derek couldn't quite say. "You'd think one would be nicer to the guy who just saved their life," he teased, stretching his extended hand a little in a gesture of good will.

Derek frowned, but took it. "But I guess it _is_ rude not to introduce myself. You can call me Stiles." He pulled Derek to his feet with a strength greater than that suggested by his slender form but less than his dramatic entrance had proved he was capable of.

"Your name is Stiles?" Derek heard himself say. He didn't know what he had expected, but it wasn't that.

"Well, it's not my _real_ name," Stiles explained as if that should have been obvious. "But it's way easier to pronounce, and anyway it's the name I like." His hand lingered awkwardly on Derek's, as if unsure where it was supposed to put itself next. Derek wriggled his own hand a little uncomfortably, but Stiles was strong-gripped and apparently oblivious. When he glanced down at their hands during the pause that followed his introduction, Stiles seemed almost surprised to see that they were still holding hands.

Turning the accidental touch into a handshake, Stiles coughed and spoke to cover up the faux pas.

"Uh, and you are Derek... right?"

Derek raised an eyebrow, finally extracting his hand from Stiles's grasp. "How do you know my name?" he demanded, instantly suspicious.

"Eh, let's just say that I'm on a very important mission, and my major objective was to find you and make sure you stay alive," Stiles replied.

"_Me_?" Derek repeated, eyes first widening in surprise then narrowing in incredulity. "Why me? And what do you mean 'on a mission?'" he added, backtracking. "Who sent you?"

"Well... I can't really tell you all of that," Stiles answered, biting his lower lip in a nervously apologetic habit. "I just... need you to trust me for right now. I promise I'll answer all of your questions, but for now, just come with me."

Derek looked back to where his friends were recovering from the shock of their near destruction and sudden salvation, reading the half-conceived questions in their gaping mouths and blinking eyes. He returned his gaze to Stiles.

"You want me... you want us to trust you?" Derek's voice wavered as he talked, because he knew it was a charade. He had no way to stop this Stiles from taking him wherever he wanted by force, and even if given the freedom to choose, Derek had no other options and he knew it. He didn't expect Stiles to play along, but he wished he would at least not curl his lip and roll his eyes as Derek continued, "You want us to follow you... to _God knows_ where? Why the hell would I trust you? In the past _half an hour_ I have seen people ripped in half and eaten, my parents' house destroyed, my neighborhood burnt to the ground... _you_ pop out of _nowhere_ in a... a... some kind of _light explosion_, turning things to ash, and you expect...?" Derek paused, recognizing that he had descended into hysteria, to collect his wits before demanding finally, "Why the hell should I go with you?"

Stiles had had the grace to wipe the condescending smirk off his face and listen solemnly to Derek's emotional outpour, and now raised his hand a few inches in an abortive gesture of benediction, contemplating but seeming to think better of touching Derek's shoulder in sympathy.

"Because instead of letting that demon eat you, I just saved your life?" he pointed out instead, a soft edge to could have been biting sarcasm.

Derek stared at Stiles for a moment, front crumbling. "And... _if_ I come with you," said sullenly, glancing back again, "what about my friends?"

Stiles peeked around Derek, curious and disconcertingly catlike. "Well, I guess they can come with us," he agreed with a shrug. "I mean, it wasn't specified that they _couldn't_."

At this point Scott seemed to pop out of his daze of passive observation, dragging Isaac along for support as he came to Derek's aid. The two planted themselves on either side of him and Scott spoke, face grim.

"And where exactly are you taking us?"

"Um," Stiles said, scratching the back of his head sheepishly, "That wasn't exactly specified either..."

"Well what exactly _was_ specified?" Isaac asked, giving voice to the group's increasing exasperation with their savior.

"Okay, look," Stiles sighed, throwing his hands up in his own gesture of aggravation and helplessness. "I was told I had to keep you alive and to take you to find 'The Messenger' in Sin City," Stiles said, getting aggravated as well.

"Sin City? Like... Las Vegas?" Scott asked.

"My guess is as good as yours," Stiles drawled.

Derek frowned, regarding Stiles for a moment before speaking.

"Give us a sec," he said finally, herding Scott and Isaac back to their huddled friends. They gathered around him for a quick consultation in hushed, conspiratorial tones. "What do you guys think?" he whispered, jabbing his thumb back behind him where Stiles watched them not-so-subtly from the tips of his toes. He craned his neck and stuck out his ear, obviously trying to make out what they were saying. Derek could tell from his eavesdropping that he was at least curious, but the utter indiscretion with which he effected it told Derek that he was either (a) completely unconcerned with the outcome of their pow-wow, (b) completely unconcerned with Derek's opinion of him, or (c) himself of the opinion that Derek was an idiot.

It made Derek want to punch him in the fucking face.

"Well, I don't see why he'd save us if he was just going to kill us anyway," Allison argued, and Derek scowled because she had a point.

Lydia nodded. "He looks like he knows what's going on, and the safest place for us has got to be with someone who knows what _on earth_ is going on and, on top of that, is able to _do something about it_," she agreed. "I mean, did you see that little magic trick of his?"

Derek scowled more deeply and looked around the group. "So... we follow him?" he grit out.

His friends looked around at each other hesitantly, waiting for some protest. When none was forthcoming, Scott looked back at Derek and nodded, the others—even Jackson—following suit. Derek stared at the ground for a long moment before nodding back at them and turning to deliver their verdict.

"You get them to safety," he stipulated, head tilting back toward his friends as he walked slowly forward, "and I'll go wherever you want." He hesitated for few seconds, then hold his hand out to seal the deal.

Stiles brightened instantly, grasping Derek's hand and shaking his whole arm like a hyperactive kid off his Adderall. "Brilliant!" he exclaimed, eyes smiling. Derek glared back, wrenching his arm backward and rubbing the shoulder as Stiles continued to grin like a tool. Well, at least he wasn't trying to eat them.

And a small favor that proved to be, Derek thought irritably as they trudged along, listening Stiles talk to himself about absolutely nothing useful.

"It really is good I showed up when I did," he was saying conversationally as Derek counted his breaths in an attempt to tune him out. "I mean, no offense but you looked like you were about to shit your pants and I _would not_ want to be responsible for cleaning that up. Not to mention _I_ would have been shit out of luck if you'd have gotten your dumb ass killed there." He paused to look at Derek, and Derek didn't know what he was expecting—Gratitude? An apology?—but all he got was a silent scowl.

Stiles's face fell a little, and he seemed to remember what he was saying or who he was talking to—but instead of just shutting the fuck up like he should have, he backtracked and tried to cover his insensitivity with more talk. "Which would have been _totally_ understandable, by the way. They are pretty nasty, aren't they? Especially to your kind..."

"Yeah, that's an understatement!" said a snide voice Derek would have never thought he would be glad to hear. "How about this, Silas... it's Silas isn't it?" Jackson sneered, ignoring Stiles's soft correction as he barreled on: "How about rather than telling us shit we already know, like how scared we looked when we were about to get eaten and how 'nasty' giant man-eating cats are, you say something _helpful_, like exactly _what they are_, or _why they're here_, or maybe _what the fuck is going on_ you useless little shit!" By the time he'd finished, Jackson's face was red from screaming.

Stiles glanced at him, unperturbed. "They're demons," he responded, "and if you don't want them to hear you, I would keep your uninspired insults to yourself."

Jackson scoffed. "I'm not talking any louder than you were so—"

"No, but you see, they're attracted to _dickweeds_—"

"Demons?" Scott cut in. "You mean like... _demon_ demons? Like, 'the power of Christ compels you' sort of demons?

Stiles turned his attention from Jackson and rolled his eyes. "Yes. Like 'the power of Christ compels you' sort of demons," confirmed, mumbling to himself, "And sometimes I wonder how your species has managed to stay his favorites for so long..."

"Whose?" Derek asked, though no one else seemed to have been close enough to hear.

Stiles shook his head dismissively and increased his lead by several paces, contemplative and quiet for once. Derek took advantage of this sweet but undoubtedly short lived silence to do some contemplating of his own, trying to piece together a working explanation of the world as it had suddenly become, based on what he had seen in the past hour and what little information Stiles _had_ given them.

It was overrun with demons, for one. At least partly on fire, possibly mid-apologetic... and, Derek felt it had been strongly implied, _he_ was the one to save it while Stiles kept him alive.

Wow. Forget horror, this was one of those bad Action/Sci-Fi movies starring Dennis Quaid and Nicolas Cage, complete with explosions (check) and campy, overused CGI effects (check plus). Personally, though, Derek was routing for an _Alice in Wonderland/Wizard of Oz_ scenario, where he would wake up tomorrow morning in his own bed (or passed out on the roof with a lampshade over his head—shit, at this point, he wasn't going to be picky) with a killer hangover.

"Stiles!" Lydia's voice, which had been buzzing at the threshold of Derek's consciousness as she gave Jackson a verbal ass-beating, suddenly cut into this thoughts-turned-fantasy. "Are you... _allowed_ to tell us who sent you?" she asked.

Stiles shook his head. "No."

"Can you tell us why the demons are here?" she tried.

Stiles' lips thinned into a straight line on his face. "I can... but I feel the Messenger would be better suited to explain."

"Then... can you tell us why Derek is important enough to keep alive?" Lydia probed further, testing for the limits of Stiles's indulgence.

"Let's just say that you humans, planet Earth, are in the middle of a war between two much higher powers, and Derek? He's the key to settling the damn thing and getting your world back on track," Stiles replied with a finality that told Lydia it was the most straightforward answer she was going to get.

"And so why were _you_ chosen for this job?" she asked anyway, never one to give in.

"Because I was the best for the job," Stiles responded simply, uncharacteristically terse. This time however his body seemed to say more than his mouth—though only Lydia and Derek were close enough still to catch the blush, and neither was sure what it meant. It was faint, but against the whiteness of his skin it stood out like rouge on a whore, and as quickly as it had flared up it faded to nothing. As soon as it was gone, Derek wondered if it had been there at all, or whether it wasn't just a trick of the light, giving Stiles's face the same rosy glow as the clouds hanging low over the horizon.

And that's when Derek realized that the sun was rising. His stomach sunk, fantasies of waking up from this nightmare evaporating like early morning mist.

"Hey," he said to Stiles, licking his lips nervously and swallowing the despair that welled up in the back of his throat like bile. "Where are we going?"

Stiles shot him a look. "Weren't you listening? City of Sin. Las Vegas."

"No," Derek clarified, resisting the temptation to throw in an unflattering nickname. "I mean _tonight_. Or, today, I guess. Now."

"Oh," said Stiles slowly, glancing over at the rising sun with that anxious sort of restlessness people use to glance at their watches. He paused for a moment picking his words, before continuing in a tone of passive-aggressive guilt-tripping petulance, "Well... we _are_ kind of in a hurry, here..."

"That doesn't answer my question. How far are we going," Derek demanded. "We haven't slept _all night_. We're exhausted. And if you think, by the way, that we are walking, like, 300 miles without rest, you are going to be dragging a corpse in to meet your Messenger because your demon burning antics are not going to save me from dying of fatigue."

Stiles pouted, making him look even more like a boy, but he didn't argue. Instead he started scanning the eerie early morning stillness that had settled around them, eyes coming to rest on a nearby convenience store.

"Will that be alright?" Stiles asked grudgingly.

"The Squirt and Slurp?" Derek read, raising an eyebrow. Stiles tapped his foot expectantly, and he looked around at his friends, who nodded, whether in agreement or weariness he couldn't tell. Well, either way...

"It's better than being out here," he shrugged, and made for the building, but Stiles pushed past him.

"Let me go first," he droned, clearly still sulking. "To make sure it's safe."

The rest of the group followed his all-clear signal, for the most part collapsing and stretching out to sleep as soon as their feet hit tile.

"How's your ankle doing?" Derek asked Erica as he closed and locked the glass paneled door behind them and joined his friends on the ground.

"Sore, but I think I'll be ok," Erica said drowsily, smiling at him.

"Good," Derek said, and closed his eyes, sorely tempted to lay his head down and sleep right then and there. But there were things that needed to be tended to, and if they weren't done now, they would all regret it later.

"Danny," Derek commanded, calling him back from the threshold of sleep. "You and Erica look around the store for a first aid kit. See if you can find some aid bandages to wrap that up, and maybe some Tylenol. Boyd, Scott, Isaac, help me barricade these doors and windows. Jackson, go make sure all the doors are locked in the back. Lydia and Allison, you guys see if you can find any real food in this place." His friends stirred, groggy and grumbling, but spurred to action by the note of leadership in Derek's orders.

Stiles cocked an eyebrow in amusement and smiled almost fondly at him. "And me, oh Captain my captain?" he teased with a mock salute.

Derek glanced at him, "You can go help Jackson. Make sure he doesn't die."

Not until Erica's ankle was wrapped and numbed with Tylenol, not until the windows were boarded and the door blockaded and he was satisfied that the Squirt and Slurp was secure enough for his friends lay into their junk food feast in relative safety and comfort, did Derek let himself eat. His first bite of beef jerky awoke a hunger his nerves had kept in check, and he all but inhaled the rest of the strip, tearing the package open and popping the rest of them one by one.

"Well. We survived day one. That has to be an accomplishment right?" Isaac said from Derek's right.

Derek gave Isaac a small smile and ruffled his hair. "Yeah," he agreed. "That's gotta say something."

"Oh, come on. You guys stick with me, and this apocalypse will be a breeze," Stiles said, waving a hand nonchalantly.

Derek raised an eyebrow, but decided his energy would be better spent chewing his 3Muskateers bar than answering that comment. The others seemed of the similar opinion. There was an awkward cough from Stiles, who seemed to have an almost phobic aversion to silence and rushed to fill the void with his own voice.

"We'll rest today," he conceded, giving Derek a conciliatory nod, "and tonight." Derek nodded back and Stiles continued. "We travel by day and hide by night—that's for safety. That means we leave at daybreak and sleep at nightfall. Darkness is the demon's element, and it will be easier to keep you all safe if we have shelter. No telling what we might run into—things worse than cats. Daylight is our best cover."

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Derek agreed, stretching out on the linoleum floor.

"But," Stiles went on, outlining his own terms. "We're still in a hurry. We travel 13 hours a day, at three miles per hour, calculating three hours for breaks—that's 30 miles a day. That'll get us there in nine days, which is already almost three times what I'd counted on, so we _have_ to stay on course."

Derek grumbled, but like everyone else, was too tired to argue. "Fine," he agreed, pulling t-shirts from the rack next to him and arranging them under his head. "You want the first shift or the second," he slurred, already drifting.

Stiles laughed softly. "Sleep, Derek," he whispered, before walking to the back of the store and finding a stack of novelty blankets, which he ripped from their plastic casing and draped them over the sleeping humans. "I'll watch over you. That's my job."

It had to be early the next morning when Derek woke up. It was still dark, but he could see a pale blue-white glow in the eastern sky through a crack in one boarded up window. He frowned. They should have covered that.

Derek wasn't sure what it was that had woken him, but as his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he noticed that Stiles was glued to one of the doors, peaking through another careless crack in their defenses.

Derek stretched and yawned quietly, scrubbing at his eyes as he stood to join Stiles at the door, curiosity overcoming the foreboding that knotted in the pit of his stomach.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"Bad bad news," Stiles responded, just as quietly, without even turning to acknowledge his approach.

The crack was tiny, and Derek had to press his face close and squint to see out into the gray light that bathed their surroundings. Stiles did not move to accommodate him, and Derek could feel an unnatural warmth radiating from his face inches to his right, a more subdued manifestation of the power that had pulsed through his entire being only two nights ago when Stiles first found them. It occurred to Derek that Stiles was actively repressing that power, and he wondered why. Why didn't he just go out there and stop the apocalypse himself? Why did he need Derek?  
Derek searched the tiny window of visibility as if he might find the answer there—in any case, it didn't take him long to find what Stiles was looking at.

It was a kid, no more than 16, with short strawberry blond hair that as Derek watched seemed suddenly to catch fire, burning red as the boy was lit from behind by the first rays of sunlight cresting the low line of the horizon. There was a man on the ground in front of him. He was shrinking back, crying and begging,

"Please! Please! Take me, but don't hurt my children. They've done no harm!"

And in the growing light Derek could see them, three small children cowering behind a tree nearby. The oldest couldn't be more than nine.

The fiery-haired boy had his back turned to the Squirt and Slurp, so Derek could not see his reaction—but he could hear the delight in his voice as he countered cruelly,

"There are no innocents." At a wave of the boy's hand, the man before him burst into flame with a cry of agony, writhing on the pavement as his flesh boiled and bubbled and melted, his bones cracking and splintering in the heat. The children's cries of horror were almost drowned out by the roaring of the flame and of its inciter, who had thrown his head back and was laughing in sickening glee. Then he turned on the children.

Derek shoved Stiles to the side and threw himself against the door, trying to break out of their hiding place to help. His shoulder collided with the door with a loud crack and light flooded in to the store. He was pulling back for another hit when one unnaturally strong arm wrapped around his chest, immobilizing him, and a hand clapped over his mouth.

Stiles cursed under his breath, anxiously watching to see if the demon-boy had noticed, but he was too busy with three children to pay them any head. Derek squirmed futilely in his grasp, wide and watering eyes snapping shut as another column of flame erupted like a beacon in the pale morning light. But he couldn't keep the high, feeble cries from etching into his brain.

"What the fuck!" he shouted into Stiles's hand, struggling harder, twisting his head to look up at his restrainer's stony face. "What the fuck, we have to get out there! We—you have to save—" he was interrupted by another flare of orange light, followed by an earsplitting cry. He closed his eyes again, weeping openly by now but no longer caring.

"Shhhh... Derek." Stiles said, squeezing the arm that held Derek's torso in attempt to calm and comfort. And if he was irritated by Derek's antics, he was also clearly affected by it, and by the suffering before him, and struggled to keep his voice steady and sure. "Derek. Listen to me, Derek. Do you know who that is?" Derek took a deep breath and shook his head, glare daring Stiles to give an answer that would justify his active apathy. "No," Stiles confirmed. "Of course you don't. It's Belial. One of Satan's 5 arch-demons. Known as the king of fire? Prince of darkness? Created second after Lucifer?" Stiles released his grip on Derek, who was staring stubbornly now at the ground, fists clenched, and continued his lecture. "What would you have done out there? _I_ can't even take him, Derek. He would have killed us all, along with those people." When Derek finally looked up Stiles was standing tall, arms folded and face more serious than Derek had seen him in the whole 12-plus hours since they had first met.

"So what?" he spat, flexing and easing his fingers in an unconscious effort to loose the tightness of anger and powerlessness that was coiling dark around his heart. "We just sit here and listen to them die? We just do nothing like a bunch of cowards?"

"Yes," Stiles growled. "Your life is _my_ responsibility. If keeping you from ending that life with your fuckwitted macho heroics makes me a coward, then yes, Derek! Yes, By all means!"

"Is that all that matters to you? Keeping me safe so you can deliver me like some package to where ever the hell we're going?" Derek snarled back, "Don't you have any compassion? Any— any kind of moral... standards? At all?"

Stiles grit his teeth, his face, having softened in pity, growing cold and grave again. "No. What you are asking, it is beyond my power to give. My task is to bring you to the Messenger, _alive_, and anything that interferes with the successful completion of that task—useless compassion, misplaced morality—is a luxury I can ill afford to indulge."

There was a terrible power in this sudden coldness that contrasted starkly to that he had felt radiating, manifest as heat, from Stiles's being just minutes before. It shone dark behind the jagged formality of Stiles's words, so different from the casual chatter that had grated his nerved the night before.

"You're a heartless son of a bitch," he whispered, troubled. "Maybe I would be better off out there with _Belial_."

Stiles narrowed his eyes and hissed, "If you say his name again, then he may be in _here_ sooner than you could have broken that door. Then maybe you'd—"

"Guys?" came a groggy voice from behind Derek, and Stiles started, cutting short his reprimand. It was Scott, blinking and rubbing his eyes.

"Everything okay?" he asked, eyes darting in mildly suspicious concern between the two as he rested a hand on Derek's shoulder.

There was a moment of tension as Derek and Stiles continued to glare at one another, but at length they seemed to negotiate a silent agreement (if not a lasting peace), and Derek nodded slowly. "Yeah, everything is fine. Did we wake you?" he asked, turning to face Scott. Behind him Stiles kicked absently at a discarded can of soda.

Scott smiled, "Nah, I just had to pee."

"Yeah... I was just headed that way myself," Derek fibbed, following Scott to the restrooms in the back of the store and leaving Stiles to fester in his anger.

They were already deviating from Stiles's walking schedule, and it was only making him more irritable. Belial disappeared not long after daybreak, but it was at least three quarters of an hour before Stiles deemed it safe for them to leave the Squirt and Slurp.

In the intervening time, Derek gently waked all of his friends and saw to it that they got some fruit, poptarts, and stale donuts—but by the time Stiles was ready to leave, they were still stuffing food and drinks, flashlights and batteries, pocketknives and pepper spray, into the plastic bags Lydia had found behind the counter along with the corpse of the night shift worker, impaled on a broken broom handle. She had screamed, and Derek had rushed over in alarm, herded Lydia and the others away from the body and collected all the bags he could find. Stiles, who had rushed after him in obvious annoyance, turned to Lydia and scolded,

"You do that every time you see a dead body, some demon is going to _give_ you something to scream about!"

"Stiles!" Derek barked, warningly, and Stiles clamped his mouth into a tight line, glowering at him. "Leave her alone," Derek demanded, adding, "You sound like my mom."

Stiles had been tensely quiet ever since, alternating peaking outside through cracks in paranoia and watching Derek work in peevish impatience.

"We don't have _time_ for this," he complained finally, watching Derek knot plastic bags of supplies to the shaft of a fishing pole for easier transportation. "Everywhere we go will be like this—free food, free water..."

"Not free if someone died for it," Derek grumbled, and Stiles's expression soured.

"Come on," he tried again. "This is ridiculous. What do you think _pepper spray_ is going to do against a _demon_?"

"More than nothing," Derek countered icily, "which is all you did."

"I saved your life," Stiles reminded him quietly, and Derek had to give him that.

"And... thank you. For that," he said grudgingly. "But you can think of this as... preventative maintenance. You say we're going to find food and water, but how do you know that? How do you know the demons haven't burnt that, too? And how do you know there'll be enough? For all of us? You're just looking out for me, I have to look out for my friends."

"Okay, look, I _promise you_ that I will be able to find food, and water, and fucking... pepper spray enough for all of you, wherever we go," Stiles swore. "_Trust me_. Derek. Come on. We had a deal.: we stop to rest, but only when the sun—"

"No, Stiles," Derek corrected. "The deal was, you don't make me walk three hundred miles in three days, I don't die of exhaustion. Anything other than that is outside the terms of our agreement."

Stiles punched at the air in stifled frustration, shaking as he tried to calm himself. "Look," he sighed finally: "you want to save people? You want to _do something_? Then we need to get to the Messenger. That's the only way."

Derek stared at him, considering. "Fine," he hissed finally, then aloud, "Get your stuff together and use the bathroom, we're leaving in five minutes."

Ten minutes later they were slogging forward at a forced march, burdened down but spurred on by Stiles's frequent and urgent prodding. He traveled up and down the line of them, grumbling as he took bags from them one by one and attached them to his own person until he was carrying most of the weight.

And if Derek was disappointed that this didn't slow him down at all, he didn't let it show. Much.

Allison walked in the middle-front of the party, occupying her time with the study of an atlas she had picked up at the Squirt and Slurp. Derek, who had been leading the pack, fell back in line with her to read over her shoulder.

"How long do you think it will really take?" he asked quietly while Stiles was patrolling the rear.

"Nine days is cutting it close," Allison confided. "Especially if they all start like today. We lost a good couple of hours this morning. We might be pushing a week."

"Do you think we'll make it?" Derek asked honestly.

Allison looked down, somber and thoughtful, for a moment, but when she returned Derek's gaze, her expression was set and determined. "We have to," she replied. "We don't have any other choice."

Derek nodded. He lingered for a moment but had nothing more to say, so he trudged back to the front of the group, preparing for the (second) longest day of his life.

Derek's mind wandered as they walked, and he tried not to let it stumble upon memories from the past two days, but it was hard to keep this thoughts happy when every half hour or so they would pass an overturned car or a gutted cow or a headless body hanging upside down from a tree.

They never saw anyone alive, and Derek wondered, if the world was populated by corpses what was there worth saving? But Stiles was steering them along the most uninhabited routes—out of fear of demons, Derek was sure he would have them believe, but he also couldn't help from suspecting that he wanted to keep Derek clear of any poor, suffering souls he might be tempted to show some mercy.

And speaking of mercy—and temptation and souls—wasn't the apocalypse supposed to have more of a... divine presence than this? Derek had never been very religious, but watching boy with fiery hair burn four people to death with his mind could make sane person question their beliefs, and based on the knowledge Derek had gathered from History Channel specials and visiting friend's churches, he was pretty sure all the Christians on the planet were supposed to be pulled go to heaven in some kind of mass alien abduction?

Okay, so maybe people weren't literally pulled up into the sky like an alien abduction, but statistically speaking, what were the chances that _no one_ in his group was a practicing, believing Christian? And if they were, why were they still here? They weren't questions he expected Stiles to have satisfactory answers for, but the longer he chewed them over the more eagerly he began to agree with Stiles on one specific point: the sooner they found this "Messenger," the better. Not only did it mean Derek could finally get some real answers, but if Stiles's only job was to get them to the Messenger, then it also meant Stiles could leave as soon as they reached him.

Right? Oh god. What if Derek was stuck with him for the entire apocalypse? Maybe he should just off himself here and now...

As the days passed and their bodies and minds settled into the monotony of routine, the group began to make better time. They started the day's march about a half an hour after sunrise, Stiles jumpy and on-edge. They stopped every hour for a ten-minute break, plus an hour break for lunch at midday. As soon as they sun began to set, Stiles became grew edgy again, herding the group into a tighter formation and sticking close to the middle as he scouted out a place to rest for the night. Since they were avoiding populated areas, there were no more Squirt and Slurps: now it was run-down barns, abandoned filling stations, and occasionally just in grottoes of rock or under bridges. Stiles kept his promise to find them food and water, but all the same Derek was glad they had packed some blankets. Screw horror movies, Derek decided, and screw cheap action flicks: he was living _Lord of the Rings_, and they had twelve hundred pages of walking to do before they made it to Mount Doom.

Thus despite Stiles's constant paranoia, his plan proved to have been a good one. They saw no demons during the day, and though their nights were sometimes haunted with distant screams and bone-chilling laughter, they themselves were never targeted.

They reached Las Vegas on the tenth day just before dark.

As the sun sunk lower toward the horizon, the city lights flickered on one by one, bright and neon and gaudy. Derek and his friends watched the display in with surprise and misgiving.

"How is it the apocalypse hasn't even touched this place?" Scott said, looking around empty streets that were bright as day despite the dimming sunlight.

"Oh, it has. This place is riddled with demons. In fact, it would probably be best if all of you tried to not act like...well humans. Don't look at anyone, don't talk to anyone... breathe as little as possible. It's called 'Sin City' for a reason—you don't think this would be the perfect place for demons to set up camp?" Stiles said dryly.

"And we're going in here... why?" Isaac asked.

"Because this is where I was told to go, and this is where we find the only one who knows what we are supposed to do next: the Messenger," Stiles explained. Now just follow me, and play it cool."

"And how will you know where this Messenger is?" Lydia asked, eyebrow raised.

Stiles smiled. "Because he is one of my heavenly brothers."

And with that they plunged into the bowels of the city, following Stiles through a maze of artificially lit streets.

"Shouldn't we, I don't know, be stopping for the night?" Erica asked, looking worriedly up at the blackening sky. "It's starting to get dark..."

"Day... night... doesn't make any difference in a place like this," Stiles replied. "And we'll be safe once we find the Messenger. Come on."

The group followed him, heads and eyes down, not daring to meet the gaze of anyone they passed. It was impossible to guess how long they walked like this, because there was no way for them to gauge the passing of time other than to count the irregular grooves in the sidewalk or their own sporadic footsteps.

So they followed Stiles, until he proceeded to duck into the shadows of a dark, narrow street, leaving them hesitating reluctantly at the edge of the light. They looked to Derek for guidance as Derek looked to Stiles in annoyed disbelief. Stiles seemed to feel the eyes on his back, or at least to notice that no one was following him, because he turned around with an innocent, "What?"

"Dark, dangerous alley?" Derek offered, eyebrows raised in question.

Stiles shrugged "Good camouflage?"

And with that he plunged forward, not checking again to see if they followed—which, because being lost in the city without him was an even more frightening prospect than going with him into a dark alleyway at night, they did.

The air was tight and suffocating, and Derek was sure he could feel eyes on them as they walked single-file through the narrow passage. He looked behind him constantly, eventually falling to the rear, certain that something was going to attack them from behind and Stiles wouldn't be able to maneuver back in time to save his friends. So maybe Derek would give him the incentive he needed. Still, he held his breath, not daring to release it until they had emerged... into a wide palm-tree lined plaza that clashed both culturally and aesthetically with the artfully asymmetric sprawl of a cluster of pagodas scattered around a tall central resort building like the sweep of a zen brush stroke around a logographic temple.

Derek's breath escaped him in a rush of awe as he followed Stiles out of the dark. It was not the opulence that struck him, but quality of the light surrounding this place—it was less flashy, not as bright as the sun but more like to it, natural and celestial and pure.

"He's here," Stiles informed them, rather unnecessarily, as they passed under the elegant, skyward-reaching eaves of the red and black and gold-ornamented pagodas. The entrance to the resort was more modern, with sleek automatic glass doors, but the interior had been outfitted (or perhaps retrofitted) in exotic novelties, rich treasures of glass and ivory and gold. Plush velvet and plumes of decorative feathers in porcelain vases. Gemmed mosaics and silk tapestries that Derek might have noticed, had he been inclined to look, portrayed Biblical, not oriental motifs. And at the far side of them room, a couch that was flanked by two costumed women, and over which were draped a white tiger pelt and a silk-robed man, whom the women were feeding grapes. He turned to them as Stiles introduced him.

"This is our Messenger, the archangel—"

"Peter!?" Derek said in shock, as soon as the man's face came into view.

"Um... no, Derek," Stiles corrected, giving Derek's name the same inflection he might have given the epithet _dipshit_. "Peter is an apostle. And a saint. This is the arch_angel_, Gabriel."

Peter/Gabriel (not to be confused with Peter Gabriel) raised an eyebrow, studying the approaching band of humans for a moment before smiling wildly, standing and clapping his hands.

"Well, well, well! What _are_ the odds! My own nephew, savior of the world. That just about figures, hmm? Come here and give your uncle Peter a hug," said Peter, arms thrown wide.

Derek stared at his uncle like he had grown another head, which metaphorically speaking, was not far from the truth. "Why are _you_ here?" he asked, completely ignoring his uncle's invitation.

"Uh, did you not hear me? He's the Messenger," Stiles repeated, rolling his eyes.

"The Messenger?" Derek balked, causing Stiles to release a long-suffering sigh and wonder why he ever bothered talking if no one was going to listen to him.

"That's me!" Peter-who-was-also-apparently-Gabriel confirmed. "The Messenger. As in, Gabriel. Angel of The Lord. Told Mary she was knocked up. You know?"

"No fucking way," Jackson said, and for once Derek had to agree. "This is just getting ridiculous, Derek. These people are obviously all psychos, including your uncle. Angels? Demons? The end of the world? And now you expect us to believe you're Gabriel? Like from the fucking Bible? No. Just. No. I'm through. I will be a part of this no longer. Fuck all of you. I'm out."

He turned tail and strode toward the exit, sliding doors parting for him like the sea before Moses as he paused at the threshold.

"Jackson!" Lydia screamed, running after him, Danny close behind. "Jackson, wait! You'll get yourself killed—please, think about what you're doing!"

"Jackson, I know it sounds insane," Danny added, "but dude, this is the only hope we have!"

Derek looked from his uncle to the exit, and back to his uncle. Peter shrugged and took a silver goblet from one of his female props, watching the drama unfold with mild interest. Derek turned to go retrieve Jackson, who was still standing in the doorway.

"No," he declared, turning to pass through the door as the others watched. "It's not our only hope. We survived _ten days_ without them."

"Stiles was with us," Derek reminded him, stepping forward to drag him back with force if he had to. Jackson ignored him, continuing his speech, arms spread wide, a glint of grandeur in his eyes.

"We keep walking," he planned aloud walking backwards and beckoning with his words. "We keep low. We gather food, we gather weapons, we gather survivors. We build an army, and we _strike_—"

Jackson's words were drowned by the blood that suddenly gurgled up his throat to drip from his gasping mouth. The immediate cause of this appeared to be the hand that was now protruding from Jackson's chest or, more precisely, the arm behind it that was currently lodged in his chest. Or maybe it was the throbbing, dripping lump of red-black, nestled in the hand, which proved to be Jackson's heart.

Blood that had spattered from the wound as the hand impaled specked his friends' face like a macabre Pollock painting (whoops, wrong Jackson). Lydia clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming.

"Looks like we've got ourselves some humans here, Mike," said the hand's owner, ripping the offending limp out up through Jackson's armpit to shine the still-beating organ to his shirt. He bit into it like an apple as Jackson crumpled inelegantly to the ground, mouth opening and closing like a fish, eyes wide and white, rolled up behind his lids.

The other demon clasped his friend's shoulder, "Hey, back away. You know the rules Mitt. No one enters his area, and he keeps his nose out of demon business."

Mike shrugged, "Well I guess we at least got our dinner for tonight?"

Mitt smirked at his friend as he grabbed Jackson's body, throwing it over his shoulder. He winked at Lydia and Danny before walking off with his friend.

Lydia and Danny each felt a hand on their shoulder, causing them to jump and almost scream. Derek turned around to see Scott looking concernedly among the three of them.

"Hey, hey! It's okay," Scott assured them. "It's just me. What the hell just happened? Where's Jackson?"

"Jackson..." Lydia sobbed. "Jackson is dead Scott...! They just..." Her knees buckled then bruised against the glittering white pavement of the plaza in front of the resort. Danny sunk to the ground beside her and snaked an arm around her back, pulling her to his chest. "Lydia, come on," he said brokenly, "I suggest we get back inside," and stood up pulling her with him.

Scott nodded, eyes glistening as he ushered them back toward the entrance to the resort. He turned to Derek, who shook the numb daze from over his mind and followed. Sure Jackson was a douche, but dammit, no one deserved to die like that. And Lydia... he honestly felt worse for her—not only did she have to watch, but now she was alone, and shit, that just wasn't fair.

In their absence, the rest of their party had joined Peter on the couch and were watching anxiously for their return. There was a collective but short-lived shudder of relief when they passed back through the doors, but then someone noticed:

"Wait... where's Jackson?" Isaac asked, searching their faces with eyes that already guessed the answer. Derek opened his mouth to confirm his suspicions in so many words, but all that came out was choking sound so he simply shook his head. No one pressed for details, all shocked but somehow unsurprised. The silence that followed was measured, and when stretched tight enough, a voice broke it.

"Now are you ready to listen?" Peter asked.


	3. Storytime

AN: You know the deal guys, we own [Teen Wolf]. They no sue [us].

Also, we are really looking on feedback on this story to see what people really think about the plot, and what people would be interested in seeing, so please feel free to leave just even a smiley face. Anything really helps. Thanks!

Story:

"In the beginning—"

"You are not seriously going there, are you?" Derek drawled.

"Excuse you. My story," Peter reminded smugly. "As I was saying, in the beginning, there was God and the angels. We danced. We sang. Everyone got along. It was... _sooo_ boring."

"Of course you'd say that," Derek sighed.

"No, he's right," Stiles attested. "Super monotonous."

Derek rolled his eyes but motioned for his uncle to continue.

"It was a long time - proverbially speaking, of course, because literally speaking we were older than time and at that time 'time' was just a half-thought thought in our Father's head," Peter continued, waxing grandiloquent, "but the ever-impatient human might have measured a millennium before we started to notice... a change, in our Heavenly father—a weariness. So we went before him, asking what the matter was and what he would have us do, but he only sighed at us—like we were the problem! And then he replied, saying he had always loved us and always would, because we were his first creation, but that he desired a companionship we could not provide, a companionship that would be 'perfect in its imperfection'—or some nonsense like that. It made sense when he said it, obviously, everything he says does, but in retrospect I've heard better break-up lines from fourteen-year-old girls, for Christ's sake!" (Stiles winced at the oath but didn't interrupt). "Honestly... 'Oh, Angels, it's not you... it's me.' Sure, God, whatever you say."

"You've heard better break-up lines from fourteen-year-old girls," Derek repeated slowly.

"Not _personally_, you sick bastard," Peter deflected and Derek threw up his hands in a gesture of innocence.

"You said it, not me."

Scott coughed indiscreetly. "So... 'perfect in their imperfection?' How does that work?"

"Angels were created to love and obey. Humans were created to... do whatever they hell they wanted. It's simple psychology: think of it like a relationship. Perfect couple, that's boring. But the couple that's always fighting and breaking up, then is getting back together? That's the love that lasts."

Derek raised an eyebrow.

"Don't believe me?" Peter challenged. "Ask God. That's what he wanted, anyway, and that's what he created: beings with the will to love him or not as they chose - whose resistance would ultimately make their love the more meaningful when it was given. And he was enamored with you overgrown apes."

"So you're saying that God is in an abusive dependent relationship with humanity," Derek paraphrased.

"More or less."

"Makes sense enough," Derek shrugged.

Peter nodded, taking a sip of wine from his embossed silver chalice.

"And this, of course, is when the Father in all his wisdom created the universe and all things great and small... as the story goes. Scientists didn't like that story, so they made their own. Called it the 'Big Bang Theory.' But joke's on them, because in the end it's all the same thing. 'Bang' really is a good word for it, though: atoms and molecules where there had been emptiness and ether, natural laws where only divine ones had ruled before. It would be millennia, as I'm sure you know—millennia upon millennia—before these molecules converged to create stars, heavy elements, planets, life, humans... compared to the pre-temporal eternity, it passed in the blink of an eye."

"Yeah," Isaac interrupted. "Yeah, we did know that. I thought you were the one who was going to tell us all the stuff we didn't know yet. Oh, and great story by the way—'god created the universe, I blinked, and now it's the apocalypse.' Is any of this even relevant?"

Peter glared murderously, and Isaac scooted back from him a few inches in alarm.

"You see what I mean?" he said, sweet as aspartame. "Humans. So impatient." He stood up and walked away from the couch, going to stare out a satin-draped window before beginning again.

"We thought...everything would be good when the humans came. That our father would be happy and we could all live in eternal peace and happiness—like before, only perhaps a little less boring. Needless to say, we were wrong." (At this point he gave Isaac another brief glare, apparently illustrative of the degree to which humanity had disappointed him.) "Not long after the humans appeared, our Father disappeared. He stuck around long enough to see the Pharaohs rise, but Moses? David? Jesus? All after."

"_Jesus_?" Lydia interrupted. "Came _after_ God disappeared? I'm sorry, how does that even..."

"We didn't..." Peter continued, ignoring her, "we don't know where he went or why. He was just... gone. So we waited, enduringly patient... hopelessly loyal... unwaveringly faithful—the eventuality of his permanent absence never even occurred to us, not for some thousands of years. Then... we lost hope, faith, patience. Strangely we retained our fealty—you see, God wasn't the only one with dependency issues. We all assumed there was something _wrong_ with all of _us_, his creations, and that as long as we continued to disappoint, he would never return. And thus, the archangels were elected to fix things."

"Sounds like my dad," scoffed Scott.

"How many of you were there?" Derek asked, ignoring Scott's comment.

"Five. Myself, of course, and Raphael, Uriel, Lucifer, and the head of the archangels, Michael," Peter replied.

"Wait, Lucifer was an archangel? Like, Lucifer the devil?" Scott asked.

Peter nodded, turning back to look at them, fiddling with his curtain, "Lucifer was god's favorite, his most beloved—don't they teach you anything in Sunday School? Of course he'd be one of the archangels. Michael was jealous. We could all see it—the seeds of discontent had fallen on good ground and would yield fruit. Nevertheless, we gathered to discuss how we should proceed. Michael held that we had all become too lax in our ways—sinful, like the humans. Naturally, Lucifer disagreed. In fact he believed the opposite: he argued god had left precisely because we were too strict, too good. The debate turned violent, and I _presume_," he drawled, eying Scott pointedly, "that you at least know who won _that_."

"Michael?" Scott ventured.

Peter nodded, looking back out the window, "Lucifer and all of who took his part were cast from heaven. But a fallen angel is no demon. Only the weak of will, ensnared by the freedom the physical world allowed them and fascinated by their power over its inhabitants, deteriorated into the monsters that haunt this city. There were two, at least, however, who took neither part. Raphael and I were troubled by Michael's actions, but more than that, we were afraid of what he might do next. We fled Heaven and sought asylum upon the Earth, and the Earth received us: we did not fall like the rest. Call it cowardice, but Michael would have smitten us where we stood—and then where would you be now? With your dumb friend, in the belly of the beast."

Derek was reminded of the charges of cowardice he had made against Stiles on their second day. Perhaps, he thought reluctantly, he had been too harsh. Or perhaps he had just overestimated him. Certainly that had been the case with the angels—everything he'd heard prior to Peter's story had suggested they were glorious, just... at the very least, _good_. But now... "So what you're telling me," he said aloud, "is that this 'war' we're apparently in the middle of, all this destruction, all the people that have _died_, is just because the archangel Michael has daddy issues and Lucifer is butthurt he kicked him out of Heaven?"

Peter cocked his head at his nephew, lips turning into a sly smile, "You could say that..."

Lydia frowned, "I have a question. Why did Michael and Lucifer choose _now_ to bring this war to earth? Also, how did Lucifer rebel if angels don't have free will, who tempted Eve if Satan wasn't expelled from Heaven until after the time of the pharaohs, and how can Jesus be God Incarnate if God has been missing since before his birth?"

Peter blinked, and if he didn't know his uncle like a brother (which recent events suggested he in fact did not), Derek would be inclined to say he looked almost uncomfortable. "You certainly... know your Bible," he observed, and Lydia pursed her lips and tilted her head as if to say, 'well, duh.' Peter sighed dramatically "I can't tell you everything you want to know tonight, but as to your first query I can promise you, you won't get any answers to that. _That_ is the million dollar question that none of us can figure out, and all I know is that it has something to do with my nephew here." He walked over to Derek and put a hand on his shoulder, studying him with some interest. It was frankly weird.

Derek looked up at him. "So what _do_ you know about my situation?" he probed.

Peter squeezed Derek's shoulder before returning to his seat, " Did you not hear me? It is late and I grow weary of this conversation. We shall continue tomorrow after everyone is rested."

There were some groans and exclamations from the group, especially Derek, but Peter silenced them.

"This hotel is equipped with 3,500 rooms—shit, there's room enough for each of you to take your own penthouse suite, if you prefer—but any way you want to divide up, or not, is fine with me," Peter said, waving at the group to disperse. "Should you need any assistance in finding suitable accommodations, one of my lovely ladies will be happy to help." A troupe of ridiculously costumed women appeared behind the couch, smiling vacantly. Lydia raised an eyebrow at one of them and requested to be shown to a penthouse. The others followed suit and the crowd slowly dispersed until only Derek lingered behind.

"It is good to see you again, nephew," Peter said softly, retiring to his couch.

"You too, Uncle Pete..." Derek said, politely declining an offer from a glittering Bollywood backup dancer to show him to an empty penthouse.

Still burning for answers, but at the same time relishing the thought of a night to himself, sleeping on a real bed and not waking to the sound of sizzling or screaming, Derek ducked down a hallway and into the nearest room (door already swung open for his convenience) and, after locking it, fell straight... into the shower.

Dirty streaks cutting paths down the shell of dirt that had formed over Derek's skin proved that he was at least two shades less tan than he had thought two minutes ago. He scrubbed his body vigorously, compulsively, suddenly disgusted by how filthy he had allowed himself to become. His hair was matted and greasy, and took at least three washings to clean—then he conditioned it for good measure and stood under the faucet for another couple of minutes, watching the water finally run clear.

Derek was brushing his teeth naked in the still-steamy bathroom when he heard the knock on the door. Rinsing his mouth quickly, he scrambled for a fluffy, white towel to wrap around his waist before answering it. He wasn't sure whom he'd been expecting, but for some reason, it hadn't been... Erica.

"Oh!" she said in mildly apologetic surprise when Derek answered the door half-naked and only half-dry. "Uh... sorry, I guess..." Quickly she turned her eyes to the ceiling, seeming suddenly to remember tact.

"No, it's fine," Derek assured her, chuckling at first, but growing serious as he asked, "Did something happen? Is everything okay?"

"Oh, no!" she replied quickly. "I mean, no, nothing happened, but yes, I'm okay..."

Derek looked at her questioningly.

"I mean, no, I'm not okay! I mean... I am, but..."

"Do you want to come in?" Derek offered, eyes softening in understanding.

"I..." Erica hesitated. "Um, yeah. Thanks." Derek closed the door behind her.

Erica swallowed nervously as she entered, and Derek reached discreetly into the closet outside the bathroom to pull a white terrycloth bathrobe from a hanger and around his shoulders. Erica went ahead of him into the room. She looked uncomfortably out the window for a moment at the twilit city, and turned to face Derek when he followed her, cinching the robe closed around his waist. Her eyes showed disappointment at this, but the relaxing of her mouth registered some degree of relief. She played idly with her hair, searching for something to say, some justification for her coming and, more urgently, for staying.

"I... never got the chance to thank you," she ventured lamely.

"For what?" said Derek.

"For... you know, for getting me out of the house, that first day..." there was a tension in her words that crept into the air between them. "And for getting me out of that..." (she fought to find words) "I was... in a really bad place then, ready to give up and die right there, and it's thanks to you that I've made it this far, that I made it more than five minutes, so... thanks."

"No," Derek said when he was sure she had finished picking her way through the clumsy thanks. "No, thank you." She looked up at him, brows raised. "Thank you... for insisting that I throw that party. Don't get me wrong, it was a bust and I didn't have any fun at all—"

"Sourpuss," Erica scoffed. Derek smiled, and the tension eased a little.

"—but I'm glad you guys were there." His smiled turned sad. "If this is the end... I'm glad you guys are with me on this. I wouldn't have made it very far without _you_."

Suddenly Erica laughed and the tension snapped, and Derek stared at her, no longer uncomfortable, but a little confused.

"Oh yeah, I can imagine," she explained. "Ten days alone with that chatterbox? I'd have slit my own throat nine days ago!"

The image was so painfully real, the response so gravely inappropriate to the mild annoyance of Stiles's loquacity, that Derek burst out laughing and the two dissolved into hysterics.

Which were promptly interrupted by another rap on Derek's door.

It was Isaac this time, and if he was surprised to see Erica, he didn't make much of it.

"Um, hey," Derek said, moving out of the doorway to allow him entry. "Everything okay?"

"Oh... yeah, just, uh... things were getting heavy. Allison and Scott... and... I wasn't feeling it..."

Derek coughed and Erica hummed knowingly, looking away in secondhand embarrassment.

"Well," Derek coughed again, looking back at the two puffy double beds. "Um, do you... two want to stay here tonight?" Both faces brightened a little, even Derek's heart felt lighter. As much as he had been looking forward to some privacy, the thought of having his friends at hand was satisfying some base animal need for companionship that must have been awakened by the trauma of the past week and a half. Isaac finally came in from the long empty hallway, and Derek was just saying, "Isaac, you bunk with me, and Erica can..." when a concerned voice interrupted.

"Derek? Hey, have you seen—"

It was Boyd. He stopped, catching sight of Erica, and then Isaac. "Erica," he sighed, relaxing. He looked to Isaac, then to Derek. "Couldn't sleep?" Erica shook her head mutely. "Yeah, me either, I was... looking for you..." he stepped into the room, sinking to her shoulder and nuzzling her neck.

"Um," Derek began again, ushering them back from the entryway toward the beds. As glad as he was to have his friends around, Derek was about to fall asleep standing up. "Okay, Erica and Boyd take the bed by the window, me and Isaac'll take the bed by the wall..."

"You sure that's a good idea?" Isaac said, eying them. Erica rolled her eyes. "I mean, I could sleep on the floor," he offered. "I'm used to that."

"Isaac, we're _all_ used to that," Derek pointed out, drawing the curtains so the room became almost pitch black. "That's why we're all going to sleep in beds tonight. It'll be fine, come on, get in."

There was a faint yellow light filtering through the half-opened door to the hallway, and Derek went to close it—but stopped when he saw Allison and Scott standing hesitantly in front of the door, brows furrowed in worry. Scott was wringing his hands.

"What?" Derek said, a little too sharply.

"Isaac disappeared!" Scott blurted out. "We—we woke up and he was just gone...!"

Derek sighed. "He's in here."

"What?"

"He came to my room, Scott."

"I... oh." Scott flushed and Allison rolled her eyes, but couldn't help looking relieved. They stood in silence in front of the door for a couple of seconds before Derek sighed again and held it open.

"Here... come in." He closed the door behind him.

"What now?" Isaac asked blearily.

"Okay, new plan," Derek announced. "Isaac, move over for Scott and Allison. I'll join Erica and Boyd... hey, anyone who wants is welcome to move next door." The grumbling faded and there was a rustling of sheets... followed by a dull thump.

"What was that?" yelped a voice that sounded like Boyd's pitched half an octave too high.

"Oh, hey, look at this," said Scott. Derek sighed deeply and fumbled for a light: Allison was standing with her hand on a fully dressed twin bed that seemed to have fallen from the sky—or the wall, judging by the alcove that had replaced a rectangle of solid wood paneling. Whatever, Derek wasn't going to question it when good things happened to him.

Derek ended up on the Murphy by himself while Scallison crowded into the double by the wall. He was about to drift into a sweet, warm sleep, when he heard another knock at his door. No one moved, and the knock came again, louder this time.

"God dammit..." Derek groaned rolling out of bed to see who it was this time. "This better be—"

Danny was crying. He crumpled into Derek, and froze for a second before wrapping his arms around him, holding him uncomfortably and rocking on his heels. He wanted to say something comforting, but everything sounded hollow and meaningless in his mind. Don't cry? But why shouldn't he. It's okay? But it wasn't.

"Sorry... I'm sorry..." Danny sobbed into the shoulder of his robe.

"It's fine, Danny," he whispered, glancing back at his sleeping friends and steering him into the bathroom. "Don't apologize." He tore off a few sheets of toilet paper for Danny to blow his nose.

"I just can't believe... I mean, I saw those people die and it was always... but I never thought..." he broke down again, and Derek touched his shoulder.

"I know," he said lamely.

"You know I never told him," Danny continued, "that I love him. Not like..." he wiped his eyes and Derek crouched down next to him to listen. "But it's... that's something friends say, you know? Best friends, but I never... I thought he might take it... the wrong way. So I didn't..."

"I'm sure he knew," Derek said truthfully. Jackson was a douche, but not to Lydia, and not to Danny. Okay, well he was less of a douche to them, anyway.

"You're right..." Danny sniffled, "I just..."

Derek sighed.

And that's how Danny ended up sprawled across half of the twin Murphy bed, legs and arms encroaching on Derek's personal space—but he was too tired to care. He had closed the door and locked it, and found a pair of complimentary earplugs in a drawer in the bedside stand.

When Derek awoke hours later, it was with the odd feeling that something was off. He opened his eyes and blinked in the dark, a line of golden afternoon sun peeking through the curtains and bisected the problem:

It was Stiles, lying on his back across the foot of Derek's bed, legs dangling over the sides, staring at the ceiling. Derek sat up in surprise and Stiles blinked back at him.

"What are you doing?" Derek demanded, and Stiles looked unsure of how he was supposed to respond.

"I thought... everyone else was doing it," he explained in a confused whisper. "I didn't want to miss the party."

"This isn't a _party_," Derek hissed. "And how did you get in here? I locked the door!"

Stiles shot him a pitying look.

"Whatever," Derek sighed. "As long as you keep quiet." He fell back to the bed.

Minutes later, the door burst open, letting in a sudden blast of light and sound.

"Rise and shine, kids! It's story time." Derek groaned and covered his face with his pillow, but Peter barreled into the room, throwing open the curtains.

"Come on—you've slept for a good twelve hours, and I'm getting bored!" he shouted. "Come on, yesterday you didn't want to go to sleep!" He began tearing the sheets from their beds. "Jesus, how many people are in this room?"

There were fresh baked pastries, croissants, fruit. Derek's could feel his mouth watering and he clamped it shut before he started drooling. Lydia was already seated at the long, low table, eyes red under her makeup.

"Where were you last night?" he asked, sitting across from her and stuffing his mouth with sizzling hot bacon. "You're the only one who didn't show up at my room."

"Really?" Lydia replied, affecting surprise. "Well, I... was in a penthouse suite. Why would I give that up for a crowded standard room?"

"How... do you know what kind of room I was in?" Derek said slowly. Lydia blinked, missing only a half beat before responding,

"The first floors only have standard rooms. The only reason I would be going 'down' to your room is if it were on the first floor."

Derek raised an eyebrow, but Lydia wasn't look at him anymore: Peter had stood up at the head of the table and was smiling down at them all.

"Now where did we leave off...?"


End file.
